Tareq and Michaele Salahi, a Northern Virginia couple attempting to obtain roles in the upcoming “Real Housewives of D.C.,” crashed the White House state dinner Tuesday night.
The couple posted photos of themselves on Facebook from the event.
A White House official indicated that the couple was not invited to the dinner, not included on the official guest list and never seated at a table in the South Lawn tent.
Edwin M. Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, told the New York Times that “initial findings identified a Secret Service checkpoint which did not follow proper procedures.”
“It is important to note that these individuals went through magnetometers and other levels of security, as did all guests attending the dinner,” Donovan said in an e-mail.
Former Bush homeland security adviser Fran Townsend told CNN’s Campbell Brown that the couple could be guilty of a felony if they told the Secret Service or White House that they were invited knowing full well they weren’t.
“This is not sort of a minor infraction, if you’re these two people who got in improperly. It’s a potential felony.They would have had to make a false statement to the Secret Service agent and the social secretary’s person, both federal officials, that there was a mistake, that they were supposed to be on the list,” Townsend said. “That’s a lie and that’s a federal felony, for which they can serve jail time. It’s not just a misdemeanor for trespassing. It’s a potential felony.”